As a keen Scuba Diver i'm very happy to find myself in this part of the world. Certainly a lot of decent diving opportunities to be had - not all in the warm waters of the Caribbean either. Despite the cold waters of Patagonia, the diving with Sealions in Puerto Madryn will always remain a fond memory.

However, one of the highlights of this South America trip (and I must admit there have been many) was planned to be a diving trip to The Galapagos islands. The trip was scheduled for September and was to be 8 days diving around Darwin & Wolf islands - famed for prolific numbers of Hammerhead Sharks and, particularly in September, a large number of Whalesharks. In the 10 years i've been diving, despite my best efforts, I have never seen a Whaleshark. Diving at Darwin and Wolf islands in September is just about as close as you will ever get to a guaranteed sighting of a Whaleshark. A fairly recent diving/travel blog I was reading reported sightings of 52 (!!) Whalesharks in a 3 days period at Darwin. Well, i'd be happy with one!

However, the bad news is that there have been recent changes to the licencing of dive operators in Galapagos - at least as far as access to Darwin and Wolf goes and of 14 operators only 2 can now operate in this area. So in short, the Galapagos diving trip is cancelled :-(

This is one very disappointed diver. Maybe i'm just not meant to see a Whaleshark? Maybe its just a reason to come back again when the licencing is all sorted out? I'll keep you posted...

Posted by Russ Jones at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yes, I know its been there for a while already, but i've just made some new music available. So... if you look in the column to the right you'll find a "What Am I Listening to" box and a streaming MP3 player. Now you can have some music while you read - all part of the service :-)

I'll try and change the songs at least once a month.

Enjoy...

Posted by Russ Jones at 11:32 PM | Permalink

More months have passed by and so has another country - Bolivia. I'm now in Peru and have just returned from the Inca Trail (a bit tired!). As usual i'm playing catch up as I haven't posted anything from Bolivia.

There's many highlights to write up: From Butch & Sundance territory, the salt plains of Uyuni, Cities & Jungles and the "World Most Dangerous Road." All to follow, but for now, heres the photos...

COMPLETE BOLIVIA PHOTO GALLERY (53 Photos)

Enjoy.

Posted by Russ Jones at 7:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Just to let you know that i've made a change to the way all the photo galleries work.

They will now open up in a new window - this means that when you are on the Travel Journal page, you can start the MP3 player over on the right and THEN click the link to the photo gallery. This way the music will continue to play whilst you view the photos too.

Unfortunately, I can't make the same change to the MAIN Photo Gallery menu at the top of the page as I don't have access to any Flash development tools here (but thats more information than you needed eh!)

Of course, if you want music, you could always use the NEW Photo Galleries section in the sidebar over to the right. I've added all the South America galleries - You can still get ALL galleries through the main menu.

Posted by Russ Jones at 7:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)